The Hidden Costs of CHEAP AMPS!

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► CHEAP SMALL AMP (Aiyima Amplifier, Arylic Amplifier, Fosi Audio Amplifier Review)

► BETTER COMPARABLE AMPS


► HOW WE TESTED THE AMPS

SPEAKERS

TVs

SPEAKERS STANDS + CABLES
My Cables: custom, not avail for purchase

DIAGNOSTICS
Room EQ Wizard

► THE REAL COST OF CHEAP AUDIO - THE HIDDEN COSTS OF CHEAP AMPS

00:00 CHEAP SMALL AMP - WHAT TO KNOW BEFORE YOU BUY
00:28 WHAT BEGAN AS AN ARYLIC REVIEW
01:02 CHIP AMPLIFIER - WHO ARE THESE AMPS FOR?
01:24 NEARFIELD LISTENING EXPLAINED
01:54 BENEFITS OF NEARFIELD LISTENING
03:20 MISLEADING POWER RATINGS
05:59 ARE THESE AMPS NEUTRAL?
08:10 HOW THESE AMPS MAY DAMAGE YOUR SPEAKERS
09:23 SHOULD I BUY ANY OF THESE AMPS?
11:05 MY WRAP UP
11:43 KRISTI’S THOUGHTS

► SHOP OUR LIVING ROOM

► MY REFERENCE AUDIO AND HOME THEATER SYSTEM

POWER

LOUDSPEAKERS

SPEAKER STANDS

TURNTABLE

TVs

HOME THEATER

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#amplifiers #fosiaudio #aiyima #arylic

[andrewrobinsonreviews]

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[robertdowell]

I’m a professional sound engineer. Amplifiers only need to do one thing: take a small signal and without adding or subtracting anything from the signal, make it much larger.

These little amps do this very well indeed, often much better than pretty much any older domestic audio kit - at any price. Domestic audio is more often garbage than not, again, at any price.

Unless you’re listening in an acoustically treated monitoring room on the flattest of studio monitors, you’re not going to find anything to fault with these things.

I say buy them enjoy your music without worrying about the cost and obsessing about inaudible sonic artefacts.

[broom]

99% of the time i agree with your reviews. Today not so much. I own fortes IVs, Heresy IVs, Quartets and original 770s along with Decware Sarah, Willsenton R8 Audiolab 6000a and pioneer 980 and a Fosi a20 pro. I paired the Fosi with a couple different dacs and was surprised how good it is, For the money. I would recommend it to people who don't have a large budget or just want to see if they want to get into the hobby. The cambrdge is a good amp but if you get into the hobby at all you will out grow it very quickly and its really limited by power. Fosi is closer to 35-40wpc out of box. So personaly i would rather have the Fosi powering speakers in my garage like mine is used for or on a desk than the cambridge axa25 at 3 times the price and size. Always appreciate your opinions whether i agree or not. 😊

[msderay]

AOTD: I've personally missed this current discount-audio wave, but I'm happy that newcomers are putting together systems at all. It's an opportunity to bring folks into better sound beyond their phones. Heck, having someone check Ohm's law beyond calibrating a vape pen is a societal win as far as I'm concerned.

[ronstewtsaw]

I have an Ayima T9 Pro connected by optical fibre to my PC. Two old Energy Take speakers at easy arm's reach. After a bit of fiddling with the bass and treble by the remote control, I have a massive, massive improvement over my aged Sony powered speakers. Best purchase I have made this year.

Right tool for the very specific job.

[tonym]

I sold my 600.00 tube amp with 6 tubes upgrades top of the line tubes... for the Aiyima07 and just swapping the opamp to sparkos labs...never feel sorry or missed the tube amp, not for a near field use...this 07 rock rocking

[RobertAlber-vd]

I bought the Aiyima a07, Fiio k5 dac, Elac db62 and Elac 130 sub for Christmas. Complete system with stands and wires for $600. It sounds great! For me, it wasn’t about the money, it was about dipping my toe back into the hobby. Before I bought this little system, I had a wish list $8000 long! Didn’t want to get stuck with it if I wasn’t going to use it. Because this has been such a good experience, I’m back to researching my next system to include high quality components. In my mind, this industry would never get my future money if cheap, borderline good quality components were not available.

[wcg]

I’m super happy with my Ayima 07, I’m using a 48V 10A supply. More power than my Audiolab 8000P power amp and I can leave it on all day. It’s not putting out 300W, but easily more than enough. These amps are not limited to near field, that’s silly. Power is power, and the Ayima 07 can easily drive floor standing speakers in a large room. Plus, measurements don’t lie and the 07 has excellent measurements.

[bigambientdeath]

I recently bought the Aiyima A07 & paired it with the Douk Audio P2 tube buffer, which added 3 way tone controls, remote control, Bluetooth, it really fleshed out the sound of the aiyima, drives my Dali floorstanders with ease, no weird whining noise, just silence, it's usually the cheap power bricks that are the weak link in these budget class d amps, i owned the Cambridge audio axa35 for a short time but found it thin, bright, with terrible tone controls, this pre, power combo for £120 sounds way better to me, the Aiyima A07 has been reviewed, modded, tested so much that I'm sure that if it was a speaker destroyer, it would have been flagged up by now! Just my honest opinion 👍

[TheFrugalAudiophile]

I use the B50 in my small living room set up. Although it is not a fantastic amp, it works just fine in this scenario and I love the fact that it has a ARC and CEC. I mainly use the system for working out and watching ball games along with some occasional airplay audio. It certainly doesn’t sound as good as my Emotiva BasX amps or even those built into my Denon receivers, but I think it is fantastic for what it offers at $140.

[jimbo]

I'm old and old school and have a few systems, I've had a fosi hooked up to several sets of speakers over the last few months and it's changed my mind

[jseals]

I've had great luck with these amps. They are fun to tinker with. I have used an A07 in my wood working workshop, so being enclosed and cheap is of great benefit. I run a JBL control sb-2 (a passive sub that accepts a full range stereo input and has a low pass to itself and high pass to the mains) and a pair of JBL arena 170 towers. While I haven't taken an SPL reading I can drive it to paint can rattling levels that compete with the table saw. I have tried several different class D amps and some are better than others but they have all been reliable and low noise. I package them with speakers that I have repaired and/or veneered and give to friends as sound bar alternatives or desktop systems. It's great because I tend to accumulate gear and I try to keep the outgoing and incoming equal. I use a Rotel and B and Ws on my main listening system but my scrappy workshop system puts a bigger smile on my face jamming out after a long day covered in saw dust.

[scottbennett]

Thanks for the review! My Fosi TB10D is super quiet, with none of the high frequency noise you mentioned in your video. It is also surprisingly loud and powerful sounding with the included power supply. It sounds pretty darn good for a cheap chip amp. I also have a 1985 Yamaha A-1020 which I recently spent $ getting it repaired because all the newer amps I tried, such as the Cambridge AXA35, Rotel A11 Tribute and Yamaha AS501 didn`t come close enough to the sound quality of my Auto Class A 125 W/Ch Yamaha amp that was recently repaired. The Fosi TB10D gives me about 85% of the sound quality of my Yamaha. The Fosi TB10D is surprisingly good sounding for a cheap amp, and I use it daily to save wear and tear on my A1020, which I use every few days to get a great fix of high fidelity. Yes, the Fosi TB10D sounds like it is missing 15% of the sound quality compared to my Yamaha A1020, but it is still quite good for what it is, and I can leave it on all the time without heating up the house. I feel it would be a super good starter amp for someone...

[williambeckner]

As a college student, I started out by getting a desk setup with a Schiit DAC and Fosi amp to run a cheap pair of Elacs I picked up used (only source is my computer at this point), and can confirm that while it was functional, it definitely was not the best option. While I'd still say the Schiit DAC has been great, and the Elacs have been great for the price ($60), I saved up and got a used Emotiva amp for $120 and it is WORLDS better than the Fosi. In the living room, my roommates and I are running a pair of vintage Kenwood floorstanders with a paradigm center and sub (admittedly had to replace some resistors on the sub) along with a couple cheap surrounds through an old Harmon Kardon receiver. All in all, that movie setup was about $170, and while not perfect, it is great for the price. I say all this to say I'd encourage anyone looking to save money to look into buying used before getting worse equipment. There are often many great deals to be had and better equipment for the money, no matter the application.

[flaviomaia]

The great advantage of a class D amp: not being questioned by wife when receiving tiny orders. 😂

[NeilBlanchard]

Class D amps use PWM (pulse width modulation) to generate an amplified signal - and because the PWM frequency is essentially *high frequency noise* it must have a low pass filter to remove it from the sound you hear out of the speakers.
This means that *some* of that noise is not able to be filtered out *and* that there are phase shifts happening because of the filter. Better Class D designs use a (much?) higher PWM frequency - which makes it *much* easier/better to filter out the noise. And there is less phase shift because the filters are set higher and have more effect with a lower slope filter.

[jari]

I have the Aiyima A07, SMSL A100 and AO200 and they all sound better than my two class AB Onkyo amps (A9010 and A9150). They are clearer (which for some may mean brightness) and the speed and control of their bass reproduction is better. They have the same power as the Onkyos. I don't understand why they would sound worse, unless you like the slightly soft sound of inexpensive AB-class amplifiers. However, none of them compare to the level of my XTZ A2-300 and Audiophonics HPA-S25ONC d-class power amplifiers.

[gdemirjian]

I recently got the SMSL-DA9 for my office and it is exceeding my expectations. I was using a vintage Kenwood KR-V95R from 1985 but wanted to downsize. Well, no downsize in sound quality. This little guy has surprisingly full note weight, is feature packed and the imaging is breakneck fantastic.
Note: the DA9 is paired mostly with a Topping E50. When settling into a good listening session it is paired with the SMSL-SU9 through the Schiit Lokius. My speakers are Sony SSCS5 paired with an Acoustic Audio PSW8 sub. I typically listen at ~70-80db, but the sound is clean and clear up to and well above 100db as well. Good times!
Love your videos!

[ramondelgado]

I seriously LOVE you both and not only the content but the WAY you present the content. I own an Ayima A07, Fosi TB10D, Fosi BT20Pro, and Fosi V3. I’m super happy with all of them. My office setup consists of a Marantz slim series receiver that would go into protection trying to drive my Wharfedale speakers that dip before 4 ohms. I added the Fosi TB10D as a power amp through the Marantz’s pre outs and not only does it sound better, but the amp runs cool and has never shut down. And I have tone controls that really work! We can disagree, and that’s ok.

[johnboard]

I have the Aiyima on my 400 sq ft screened in porch hooked up to 4 Bose vintage outdoor speakers and it rocks! I would highly recommend it for that type of application. I use a Cambridge AKA 35 in my bedroom system and agree that the warm British sound is preferable to the cheap Aiyima. But, I have used the Aiyima to drive my Klipsch LaScalas and Heresy’s and I have to say it is pretty darn good.